EDITORIAL A tale of three fashion retailers: IRUK Top500 retailers New Look, Boohoo and Ted Baker report their latest figures

The focus is on the fashion sector in today’s InternetRetailing newsletter as we report on very different sets of figures from New Look, Boohoo and Ted Baker.

New Look reports its turnaround plans after a year of falling sales and pre-tax losses, Ted Baker reports strong online sales but weaker sales growth in stores in the first quarter of its financial year, while online-only Boohoo reports growth of at least 50% across all its markets. All of these retailers hail from the same sector and are thus facing similar challenges around consumer spending. So why are some retailers in this sector seeing growth while others are making losses. One key difference in their business models that’s now being felt in their fortunes lies in their stores. Fast-growth Boohoo has none, while Ted Baker says its estate is a size that allows it to be flexible, and New Look is cutting store numbers by 60 from the 593 it previously operated.

It’s a useful illustration of how retail in response to changing customer behaviour that is seeing fewer visits to stores and more purchases online. We have another illustration of the retail response to consumers with a look at how sustainability issues are being tackled. And we also bring together research from Salesforce and Mitel to come up with five examples of just how customer behaviour is changing.

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